Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that he was closing the file on the attempt by Lloyd Austin and the DEI gangsters who ran the Pentagon under his misrule to strip U.S. soldiers of Medals of Honor earned while suppressing Sioux resistance. 

In 2021, the only American Indian serving in the U.S. Senate, Elizabeth "High Cheekbones" Warren, who is also the renowned author of the Pow Wow Chow cookbook, introduced a bill called the "Remove the Stain Act." This occurred during the midst of the racial struggle session that liberal America was undergoing after the George Floyd Summer of Peace. This bill would have stripped the Medal of Honor from U.S. soldiers because "Allowing any Medal of Honor, the United States highest and most prestigious military decoration, to recognize a member of the Armed Forces for distinguished service for participating in the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Native Americans is a disservice to the integrity of the United States and its citizens, and impinges on the integrity of the award and those who have earned the Medal since."

Even though the bill did not pass Congress, that didn't stop Lloyd Austin, who never saw a race he couldn't bait, from plowing ahead.

"It's never too late to do what's right," a senior defense official said in an interview this week. "And that's what is intended by the review that the secretary directed, which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual in the context of the overall engagement."  

That was the last we heard of it until Secretary Hegseth's announcement yesterday.

Under the previous administration, a review panel was convened to determine whether soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions at the Battle of Wounded Knee should keep their medals.

Now, upon deliberation, that panel concluded that these brave soldiers should in fact rightfully keep their medals from actions in 1890. The report was concluded in October of 2024.

Yet, despite this clear recommendation, former Secretary Lloyd Austin, for whatever reason, I think we know he was more interested in being politically correct than historically correct, chose not to make a final decision. 

Such careless inaction has allowed for their distinguished recognition to remain in limbo until now. Under my direction, we're making it clear without hesitation that the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 will keep their medals. And we're making it clear that they deserve those medals. This decision is now final. And their place in our nation's history is no longer up for debate. We salute their memory. We honor their service. And we will never forget what they did.

The situation was not the massacre of harmless tribesmen moping their way across the prairie. The engagement occurred during the last gasp of the Indian Wars that began shortly after English settlers arrived in Jamestown and dragged on until the early 20th Century. The wars were bloody and filled with atrocities committed by both sides, but ultimately, the superior culture carried the day. The operation took place in the context of the Ghost Dance movement among the Plains Indians. The 7th Cavalry intercepted a band of Indians traveling between two reservations in South Dakota. The mission was to disarm them as they were suppressing the Ghost Dance. A lot of modern apologists claim the movement, which had as its goal the mystical elimination of White people, was totally benign. I think that is a damned comfortable opinion to have 130 years after the fact. The battle took place a mere 14 years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The last battle between the U.S. Army and Indians was still 30 years in the future. The homesteading families upset by the Ghost Dance had every reason to be afraid and expect the worst. They and their neighbors had been brutalized during the extended war with the Dakota and had no reason to think the Ghost Dance was some quaint ethnic custom. Quite honestly, had the Ghost Dance not been suppressed, there is no guarantee that another war would not have erupted. 

These are the men, many of them immigrants, whose reputation and valor Elizabeth Warren and her fellow travelers are trying to besmirch—AUSTIN, WILLIAM G., Sergeant, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry; CLANCY, JOHN E., Musician, Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery; FEASTER, MOSHEIM , Private, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry; GARLINGTON, ERNEST A. , First Lieutenant, 7th U.S. Cavalry; GRESHAM, JOHN C. , First Lieutenant, 7th U.S. Cavalry; HAMILTON, MATHEW H. , Private, Company G, 7th U.S. Cavalry; HARTZOG, JOSHIJA B. , Private, Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery; HAWTHORNE, HARRY L. , Second Lieutenant, 2d U S. Artillery; HILLOCK, MARVIN C., Private, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry; HOBDAY, GEORGE , Private, Company A, 7th U.S. Cavalry; LOYD, GEORGE , Sergeant, Company I, 7th U.S. Cavalry; McMlLLAN, ALBERT W. , Sergeant, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry; NEDER, ADAM , Private, Company A, 7th U.S. Cavalry; SULLIVAN, THOMAS , Private, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry; TOY, FREDERICK E. , First Sergeant, Company C, 7th U.S. Cavalry TRAUTMAN, JACOB , First Sergeant, Company I, 7th U.S. Cavalry; VARNUM, CHARLES A., Captain, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry; WARD, JAMES , Sergeant, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry; WElNERT, PAUL H. , Corporal, Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery; ZIEGNER, HERMANN , Private, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry.

Secretary Hegseth has made significant progress toward fulfilling President Trump's "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" executive order. Holding the line against this cheap attempt to strip American soldiers of recognition for heroism just because the left wishes to rewrite history should qualify him for an award. But he needs to hold onto that report because Warren and the usual suspects have introduced the "Remove the Stain Act" again this year.

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